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Symptom classification of schizophrenia changes with the duration of Illness
Author(s) -
Hori A.,
Tsunashima K.,
Watanabe K.,
Takekawa Y.,
Ishihara I.,
Terada T.,
Uno M.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1999.tb00991.x
Subject(s) - schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , psychiatry , depression (economics) , duration (music) , psychology , anxiety , mental illness , clinical psychology , mental health , art , literature , economics , macroeconomics
Our starting hypothesis was that schizophrenic symptomatology changes over time. This hypothesis explains conflicting reports 011 schizophrenic symptom structures as a consequence of different durations of illness in the samples studied to date. Therefore a sample of ‘258 schizophrenic in‐patients (with ICD‐10 diagnoses F20) was categorized according to illness duration. A factor analysis was performed on the 8 items of the Manchester Scale for three subgroups (duration < 10 years, 10‐20 years and ≥ 20 years). For those patients whose illness duration was less than 10 years, ‘formal thought disorder’ was not related to any other mental state, whereas for those whose duration was 10 years or longer, it was correlated with ‘negative symptoms’. In the < 10 years group, ‘anxiety and depression syndrome’ and ‘positive symptoms’ formed one complex, but these symptoms were separated into two distinct syndromes in the ≥20 years group. Thus we were able to demonstrate that the classification of symptoms changes with increasing duration of illness.